Читать книгу Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong - Guo Xiaoting - Страница 16

CHAPTER 8

A false order from the prime minister commands that the Great Pagoda be pulled down; the vagabond saint manifests his powers to punish the evil lower officials

NOW, from that day when Ji Gong had left the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat, he had been staying sometimes at the home of Su Beishan, and sometimes at the home of Zhao Wenhui. Today he had been playing chess in the home of Su Beishan with Su Yuanwai. Suddenly Ji Gong moved a chess piece that committed him to the attack. At the same moment, Ji Gong’s thoughts turned to the temple, and by the light of his intuition he knew what was taking place there.

At once he slapped his hand on the table three times and said, “Su Beishan, I cannot remain here in your home. I must go immediately. Prime Minister Qin has sent people to demolish the Great Memorial Pagoda in my temple. I am going to fight with this Prime Minister Qin.”

Su Beishan said, “Saintly monk, you cannot. It is he who is the prime minister. He ranks with the most glorious nobles. My teacher is a man who has left the world. How can you provoke the wrath of such a powerful man?”

Ji Gong did not give Su Beishan any further explanation, but simply stood up to leave. Su Beishan went with him to the mansion gate and watched as he walked off into the distance. Ji Gong walked straight out through the Qiantang gate and along the Su Embankment, singing to himself.

Those who live a century

Since the ancient times are few,

First a child, then faltering age,

In between not too much time.

There is sadness; there are cares.

Though our nation brims with wealth,

This dynasty’s governed ill.

Though officials gain much gold,

Few have wisdom, none are brave.

Once disturbed, their hair turns white.

Autumn’s moon will soon grow dim;

Autumn’s flowers quickly fade;

Time for flowers passes soon.

Bring the wine jar round once more

And forget the dusty tombs,

‘Til the grass turns green again.

The monk was still singing when he came to the mountain gate. The moment that Guang Liang saw him, the superintendent said, “Brother teacher, thank heaven that you are here! Such a calamity! It is as if the sky has fallen on our temple!”

After Ji Gong had asked for the details about which he already knew, he said, “No matter what the calamity, even if the heavens fall, Brother Teacher, it does not matter. Leave it all to me, Mad Ji! But this pagoda is something we cannot give them. Do you think that I would fail the body of monks in this temple?”

Guang Liang said, “But, Brother Teacher, you must not provoke these men to anger. They are the four great managers of the prime minister’s estate. He has sent them here to take down the Great Memorial Pagoda and use the materials from it to restore his lofty pavilion.”

Ji Gong said, “Ah! He is the prime minister of the present reign, and he wants to destroy the Great Memorial Pagoda, so it must be destroyed! Then after another two days pass, the commander of the capital’s palace garrison will order us to have the Great Treasure Hall taken down, and we will let him destroy that! And there will be still more! Again, after another two days, a letter will come from Linan prefecture, saying that its officials want us to take down the two halls to the east and west! Again we will have to let them be destroyed! After still another two days, a letter will come from Qiantang prefecture, or some other prefecture, saying that its officials want to take down the storage building for sutras, and we will have to let them destroy it! And there will be still more! I raised the money for the Great Memorial Pagoda, and I cannot give it to them to take down!”

Hearing this talk, the superintendent thought in his heart, “Ji Gong was never right for us in the past. This situation may be our chance to get rid of him.” Thus, even now, the superintendent was still trying to take advantage of the situation to injure Ji Gong. Then Superintendent Guang Liang said, “Brother Teacher, do you dare to ask them not to take down the Great Memorial Pagoda? The four honorable great managers are now sitting in the large meditation hall. You may go to look for them, but I fear that you will make trouble that you cannot control.”

Ji Gong gave a cold little laugh saying, “Brother Teacher, I do not want you to concern yourself with this matter.” Having spoken, he walked quickly toward the large meditation hall.

The courtyard that he entered was shut in on three sides by buildings. A dozen or more low-ranking officials were standing about in the courtyard, and the four honorable managers were just then drinking tea in the best building on the north side. When the low-ranking officials saw the poor monk with clothing so badly torn and ragged, they quickly stopped him saying, “Who is this?”

Ji Gong said, “It is I.”

The lower officials asked, “Who are you? The various great people are now here talking. What is a poor monk like you doing by coming here? To what temple do you belong?”

Ji Gong replied, “I belong to a nun’s convent.”

When the lower officials heard his reply, they admonished him, saying, “That is no kind of language to use. You are a monk. What are you doing in a nun’s convent? Men and women mixed together!”

Ji Gong said, “You do not understand. The old nun in the convent died, and the young nun has run off with somebody. I am staying at that temple as the caretaker. I have heard it said that all you honorable great people have come asking about large pieces of timber. In large temple where I come from we have accumulated a great pile of timber, a pile like a mountain, truly large and truly bulky, like these long beams that hold up the roof. If a man squats down at this end and another man squats down at the other end, the pile is so big that the man at this end cannot see the man at the other end.”

The low-ranking officers said, “What a big pile of timber that must be!”

The monk went on with another rush of words, repeating himself. “That big pile of beams in our temple, with a man squatting down at one end and the other man squatting down at the other end, and the man on this end unable to see the man at the other end!”

Again the low-ranking officers said in unison, “What a big pile of timber that must be!”

The monk rattled on, repeating, “The pillars and rafters under the roof in our temple are piled so high that the man squatting at this end cannot see the man squatting at that end, and the one at that end cannot see the man at this end.”

When the low-ranking officials heard this, they all laughed and asked, “What do you expect to do about these timbers, Monk? Do you want to sell them? Do you want to give them to our great man?”

The monk replied, “I do not want to sell anything to the great man. I would only like the great man to give me some money to fix my pants.”

Inside the large meditation hall, Qin An had heard all this conversation very clearly. Deciding that it was some kind of trickery, he had someone call the monk inside. One of the low ranking officials said, “Monk, our great man has called you. When you see our great man, be polite. None of your fox and monkey antics!”

The monk did not respond, but strode over to the hall, pushed aside the bamboo curtain, and entered. When the four men (Qin An, Qin Sheng, Qin Zhi, and Qin Ming) saw that it was this miserably poor monk, Qin An asked, “Monk, does your temple actually have some timbers?”

Ji Gong blinked his eyes and asked, “Where did you four honorable people come from?”

They answered, “We have been sent from Prime Minister Qin’s residence. The great man has given an order that the Great Memorial Pagoda be torn down and the materials used to repair the large, many-storied pavilion in the prime minister’s flower garden.”

Ji Gong said, “You four honorable people have been ordered to come and take down the Memorial Pagoda by the great person of your houses.”

The four men exclaimed, “How could there be a great person in our houses!”

Ji Gong said, “The fact that you have no idea about how to perform your duties can be blamed upon your never having had any great person in any of your houses. When you return, tell that great man of yours that I, the monk, have said the following. From start to finish, the matter of his drawing a salary depends upon the fact that, at the beginning, the three imperial boards arranged to have such an official. They expected that he would harmonize the yin and the yang, settle matters in the way that they ought to be settled, and be himself deserving of his own share of happiness. He has no reason to pull down the property of Buddha. You return and tell him that I, the old man, say that it is not permitted.”

Hearing these words of Ji Gong, how could these several honorable managers not be enraged by them and not become more reckless?

Qin An said, “All right! You ignorant monk! First of all I will beat you!” With his arms flailing, he came at Ji Gong and attempted to land a blow.

Ji Gong stepped to one side, saying, “If you want to fight, let us go outside.”

Qin An straightened up and walked outside after the monk. There, Qin An told his people, “Beat this monk for me!”

The low-ranking officials all came at him together, fists swinging, each trying to get in a blow at the monk’s face or legs. There were sounds of unceasing groans, in the midst of which they heard a voice say, “Do not strike! It is I!”

The low officials cried out, “Of course it is you that we are beating. You had no business to come running in among us, asking to get yourself killed. You really are too old to be putting dirt on your own head!”

While they were still beating him, they heard Qin Sheng, who had come out and was standing there beside them, say: “Stop beating him. I heard a sound that was not right. Let me look, before you beat him any more.”

Oh, it was dreadful! Suddenly Qin Sheng and the others realized that the monk was standing off to the east observing them. Naturally, he was laughing. Looking down, they saw the chief manager, Qin An, disheveled and bruised. The people gathered round him and said, “Manager, how did you happen to get beaten, sir?”

Qin An said, “You were all getting even with me for some private grudges you had. I told you to beat the monk, but you beat me. I said, ‘It is I!’ and you all said that it was I that you were beating. All right, all right, all right!”

The other two, Qin Zhi and Qin Ming, came out to look. They saw that Qin An’s injuries seemed rather serious, and Qin Sheng said, “This certainly is the result of some witchcraft of that monk. Every one of you beat him for me.”

When the low officials heard this, they all went toward the monk, their eyes glaring and their expressions most forbidding.

The monk said, “How nice! How nice! A quiet man may ride, but a quiet horse is ridden.” Then he said under his breath the six sacred words: “Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum! I command!”

His words were frightening enough to make them all fall silent. Then they all became angry with each other. Chang Sheng looked at Li Lu and said, “Every time I look at you, my fury rises. I have long wanted to beat you, you subservient dog’s head.”

Li Lu said, “Good! Let us face off and see who stays up and who goes down!”

Over on the other side of the courtyard things were much the same. Jia and Yi were battling in one place; elsewhere, Tzu and Zhou were fighting to the death; eighteen people were beating each other in nine pairs.

Qin Sheng looked at the battered and bruised Qin An and said, “I am always angry when I look at you. You asked the people to beat you up. If you are angry at me, come over and I will give you a good one.” At once the two struck out at each other.

Ji Gong was standing watching one man and asked him, “Why are you hitting that man?”

The man looked and said, “Something is wrong. I am not the right adversary for him.”

Ji Gong said, “Let me help you with a suggestion. Hit him a few more times, then exchange him for someone else.”

The monk watched them go on fighting. One hit the other a slanting blow and then almost bit off his ear. The other, enraged, then bit off a piece of the first one’s nose. They were all fighting wildly with each other.

The superintendent of the monks came over, looked and said, “Dao Ji, you have created a great disturbance. You have put these honorable managers of Prime Minister Qin through more than beasts could bear. Is this right? Are you not ready to release them from your spell?”

Ji Gong replied, “Brother Teacher, if you had not asked me, I might have let this band of robbers kill each other, one by one. Today I will spare them.” Then he said, “Stop fighting, everyone!”

Naturally at this command they all came to their senses, each one blaming the other. One said, “Sheng, my brother in arms! You and I have had such a long friendship! Why did you beat me so cruelly?”

His friend Sheng replied, “How should I know? Look at my ear—you bit off a piece!”

The other retorted, “Don’t talk about it! Wasn’t that a piece of my nose that you just spat out?”

All of the others had recovered their wits, including Qin An, who seemed in no serious danger after all. “Which temple does that crazy monk come from?” Qin An asked the superintendent. “You had better not let him get away. In a little while, if that crazy monk is not available, I will ask you for someone in his place!”

The managers and their men mounted their horses and then left the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat. All along the road they whipped their steeds. The shaken men were unwilling to slow down until they had passed through the Qiantang gate and reached the prime minister’s estate. There they dismounted. Then they saw coming out of the mansion gate a fellow worker who looked at them and asked, “How did you come to return like this?”

Qin An told the whole story from beginning to end. Then the man advised him: “When you see the prime minister, do not tell him the exact details of what has happened; instead, let him take responsibility for finding this monk who brought you ill luck and seems to be the ring-leader of the temple.”

When Qin An came to the library, Prime Minister Qin was there reading. As soon as he lifted his head, he said, “You four men were sent to the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat to borrow some timbers. Why did you come back looking like this?”

Qin An replied, “We were just carrying out your orders, sir, and had reached the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat beyond the West Lake to borrow the timbers. All the monks in the temple were glad to lend the lumber, except one crazy monk. He not only would not lend it to us, but he beat and insulted us. I beg the prime minister to make a ruling concerning this matter.”

When Prime Minister Qin heard Qin An’s explanation, he said, “So! In addition to everything else, the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat has produced a crazy monk. How does he dare to beat the people of my household? It really is a pity!”

He then used his brush to write a warrant that was sent to the capital’s garrison, ordering that five hundred soldiers under the command of two senior officers be provided to maintain order in the area. These officers were to surround the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat and to bring back Ji Gong in irons.